When I asked about where I could get some robot pictures I was told www.firstrobotics.net When I went there I was impressed with the massive amount of pictures available, but thought the design could be improved slightly. I spent much of the last couple days dowloading one by one all 1419 pictures on the site. I put them onto a new site that I made for displaying and archiving the pictures. The site allows you view pictures in groups (versus having to load all the pictures in a section) and will be updated constantly. It also looks a little nicer than the firstrobotics site. I will also shortly be adding zip folders of the entire picture collection, and by individual year. The site also allows users to upload pictures, versus having to email the pictures to the guy.
I like the organization of the pictures…a lot easier than searching through hundreds of pictures at once. Also the layout of our team’s website is impressive Tom. Well done.
Also if any teams know who won regionals or national’s that would be nice. I can add it to the descriptions to specific bots. Also if you would like to add a description to your particular robot just let me know and I can add it.
It’s cool… but it doesn’t have team numbers. That really takes away a lot of the usefulness. I’m still gonna keep going to firstrobotics.net because I wont have to click every picture to find the team I want.
ALSO – You can search for a specific team number say
you type in 190 in the search forum
you can see all the bots team 190 has built over the years…
EDIT: I have added titles up through the year 1999 I will add the titles below for the rest of the years when I get home. The search still works for all years just use numbers only.
I like the idea, but have you contacted the guy who did FIRSTRobotics.net first? I know he’s put many many many hours into organizing all of those photos, and to just take the photos (yes, I know they’re not his… but he spent a great deal of time to organize them) off of his site without at least communicating with him? It’s not very professional imho, because of his time and effort.
I have added the team names under all categories now… wow it takes a long time to type out 1,419 team numbers under them… but it is done. I will contact the owner of firstrobotics and tell him about the site, without the initial work done by that person this site would not be possible, however I also put in a LOT of my own sweat into this site.
Firstrobotics wasn’t the rightful owner of all of those images… and I don’t believe anyone went through the process to get an offical copyright on their images… If any teams want their pictures of their robots removed I will. In short I don’t believe I did any sort of copyright infringement
I am adding in the descriptions if the team won particular awards… so far all I can find is chairman’s award… so the winners of the chairman’s award will have it labeld under their robot for that year.
Wow. The site is very impressive, and it is obvious that you put a lot of work into it. It is very nice, and your efforts show.
However, having said that, there is a real problem. You openly admit that these are not your photographs. You have pilfered them from another site, and are using them without permission and without giving credit to the original photohgrapher/owner. At the very least - and there isn’t really a nice way to say this - this is blatant plagarism. You are not crediting the owner/photographer of the image, and leaving the impression this is your own work. All you do is note which team’s robot is in the image, but not the person that created the image. In the worst case, it may be a totally illegal copyright infringment and a criminal offense (the fact that an image is not displaying the (c) copyright symbol does not mean that it is not copyrighted; the only way to know for sure is to ask the original photographer/owner). In either case, it is improper. The fact that you put in a lot of work and additional material does not change the fact that the photographs are not yours are you are using them without permission.
Firstrobotics wasn’t the rightful owner of all of those images… and I don’t believe anyone went through the process to get an offical copyright on their images… If any teams want their pictures of their robots removed I will. In short I don’t believe I did any sort of copyright infringement.
Whether FirstRobotics used the images with or without permission is immaterial. YOU do not have permission to use the photographs. Whether the photographer registered the image for a copyright certification is also immaterial. Unless you have direct permission from the owner of the image, or explicit knowledge that they have placed the image in the public domain, then including the images in your public database is improper.
And to top it all off, your home page is particularly inappropriate for an activity like FIRST. Is that the sort of public image that you want to have associated with your team? Perhaps more important, do they want that to be the impression that the public has of them?
